“We see a need because our retailers are looking for deli and replacement meals and grab and go,” said Ernie Spada Jr., owner.

Mary’s Harvest Fresh was scheduled to open July 15.

The company has spent $6 million in the project, including a $4 million buying and retrofitting a 45,000-square-foot building about eight blocks from the company’s main office/warehouse complex, Spada said.

The company’s plans for the operation include processing fresh fruits and vegetables. The new business includes a 6,000-square-foot kitchen for salads, sandwiches and “a full line of grab-and-goes,” Spada said.

Charisse Spada, sister of Ernie Spada Jr., is president of the new company, which is to have a distribution area that includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

The company will have 225 employees, some of whom are new hires and some who will move over from the processing plant at Duck Delivery, which is being closed, Spada said.

“We’ve kind of pushed forward on more of those types of things, not just to stay compliant but to stay ahead of what’s coming,” he said.

He declined to comment on individual improvements the company had made this year in the area.

“It’s just the overall program — the bookkeeping, the logging of everything you do, along with the traceability and so on,” he said.

The company is looking to reduce redundancy in audits, Hayton said.

“What’s been difficult is what works for one retailer or foodservice company may not work for another, so there’s been requests for several different audits, and we are trying to hone in on one universal audit that would work for most everybody,” he said.